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Wednesday 12 February 2014

Tortured, branded, burned alive: Inside the land where lynch mobs still hunt witches and men guard graveyards to stop sorcerers feasting on the dead

Witch burnings are on the increase in Papua New Guinea, where drug-fuelled mobs accused these three women (top left, top right and bottom left) of using sorcery after villagers died and then attacked them with machetes and red hot iron rods, leaving them mutilated and outcast from society. Gravediggers like 'Skull' (bottom left) guard cemeteries at night to stop the 'witches' 'feasting on the innards of freshly buried bodies'
Witch burnings are on the rise in Papua New Guinea
It was a scene out of the 15th century.  A naked woman was tied to a tree amid a crowd chanting for the name of the 'witch' by a fire glowing with the branding irons which would soon be used to torture her.
After that, they planned to burn her alive.
The crowd had worked itself up into a frenzy, part fuelled by the potent local cannabis and a home brew called 'steam', and partly by the fervent belief the woman was a witch who feasted at night on corpses and had used sorcery to make a villager die.

Law of the jungle: Accused of being a witch this woman was stripped, beaten, slashed, blindfolded and placed 'on trial' on a piece of roofing iron in this snapshot (above) captured by a villager. Days later she was tied to a stake and tortured with branding irons amid a frenzied crowd which chanted 'kolim nem' (call the name) of the so-called witch to save her own life
Law of the jungle: Accused of being a witch this woman was stripped, beaten, slashed, blindfolded and placed 'on trial' on a piece of roofing iron in this snapshot (above) captured by a villager. Days later she was tied to a stake and tortured with branding irons amid a frenzied crowd which chanted 'kolim nem' (call the name) of the so-called witch to save her own life
Accused witch: Dini Korul, in her early 50s, in her hut shows the scars from the attack when cut with bush knives and burnt with iron bars after villagers accused her of sorcery when her 22-year-old son died from a  stomach infection and they dragged her to a pigsty, attacked her and left her for dead
Accused witch: Dini Korul, in her early 50s, in her hut shows the scars from the attack when cut with bush knives and burnt with iron bars after villagers accused her of sorcery when her 22-year-old son died from a stomach infection and they dragged her to a pigsty, attacked her and left her for dead
The incident happened in  21st century Papua New Guinea (PNG), in the highlands of the large Pacific island which lies 150kms off the northern tip of Australia.
Witch burning, torture and sorcery are still common in PNG, where primitive beliefs and a local form of voodoo endure amid a gold boom, in a place where tribesman might have mobile phones, but still believe in black magic, called 'sanguma'
Around 80 per cent of the country's seven million people live in remote farming communities, including the richly fertile mountains and river valleys which make up the highlands, where men still carry spears and bows and arrows.
New Guinea's witch hunt victims can be either sex, but most are women.
Throughout history, accused witches have been hanged, drowned and burned at the stake, the practice usually dying out in modern times.
But according to a report by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, progress in New Guinea has actually brought an explosion in witch hunts, as a sinister culture has taken hold among dirt poor villagers living amid a resources plunder by mining companies.
Corpse eaters: Gravedigger Jokar 'Skull' says he must guard the cemetery by night when witches come to raise freshly buried corpses from the ground by sorcery and then dine on the innards of the dead
Corpse eaters: Gravedigger Jokar 'Skull' says he must guard the cemetery by night when witches come to raise freshly buried corpses from the ground by sorcery and then dine on the innards of the dead
Emate, pictured with her youngest son, Dikon, was accused of using sorcery to kill her husband. Four male relatives including three of her sons brutally attacked her, after which she had to flee her village with her youngest boy and pay for her own hospital treatment
Emate, pictured with her youngest son, Dikon, was accused of using sorcery to kill her husband. Four male relatives including three of her sons brutally attacked her, after which she had to flee her village with her youngest boy and pay for her own hospital treatment
Burned and beaten: Emate lies in hospital after her sons attacked her with hatchets, hammers, branding irons and knives believing she was a sorcerers responsible for the death of her husband
Burned and beaten: Emate lies in hospital after her sons attacked her with hatchets, hammers, branding irons and knives believing she was a sorcerers responsible for the death of her husband
Alleged Sorcerer: Accusations of sorcery against Papua New Guinean women like Emate (above) are commonly followed by attacks with knives and branding irons, which only some of the 'witches' survive
Alleged Sorcerer: Accusations of sorcery against Papua New Guinean women like Emate (above) are commonly followed by attacks with knives and branding irons, which only some of the 'witches' survive

Village gravediggers told Russian photographer Vlad Sokhin they guarded cemeteries by night with machetes and homemade guns against 'the  sanguma' who came after dark to feast on the innards of freshly buried corpses.
An estimated 200 suspected witches were killed in one year in Simbu province in the central highlands, the victims 'thrown from cliffs, tortured, dragged behind cars, burnt, or buried alive'.
'Unexpected hardship or bad luck, sudden and incurable diseases, all can be accounted to the actions of evil people, to magical forces,' the UNHCR report said.
'The diagnosis of witchcraft opens up the possibility of combating the causes of hardship'.
Health crises, such HIV/AIDS in PNG have spurred on witchcraft.
The woman tied to the tree in a central highlands village in August 2012 was seized by a gang who blamed her for the recent deaths of two young men.
Aged in her late 40s, and the mother of a small boy, the woman had no husband or male family, making her fair game as the scapegoat when a death occurred.
Graveside attack: Rasta Tuwa was accused of sorcery by people from her village after the death of a young man in 2003. During his funeral the crowd surrounded Rasta and attacked her. Rasta ran into her house, where she was caught up by one of the pursuers who chopped off one hand and a finger on her other hand
Graveside attack: Rasta Tuwa was accused of sorcery by people from her village after the death of a young man in 2003. During his funeral the crowd surrounded Rasta and attacked her. Rasta ran into her house, where she was caught up by one of the pursuers who chopped off one hand and a finger on her other hand
Banished: Not only was she accused of being a witch, beaten and slashed  with wooden sticks and machetes and had her hand severed, Rasta Tuwa, can no longer return to her village home and her husband
Banished: Not only was she accused of being a witch, beaten and slashed with wooden sticks and machetes and had her hand severed, Rasta Tuwa, can no longer return to her village home and her husband
Rasta, who is around 60 years old, had to leave home after her attack and while her husband was later compensated for the damage to his wife with 600 kina (around £140), Rasta never received any of the  money
Rasta, who is around 60 years old, had to leave home after her attack and while her husband was later compensated for the damage to his wife with 600 kina (around £140), Rasta never received any of the money

Accusations of witchcraft - known in the local Pidgin language as 'mekim poisen' (make him poison), a kind of voodoo - against the woman quickly escalated.
The mob of drunk and drugged young men rounded her up. She was stripped, blindfolded, slashed with knives and sat on a length of corrugated roofing iron for her 'trial' amid a crowd which chanted 'kolim nem, kolim nem' (call the name), demanding she give up the identity of the real witch to save herself.
Days later, surrounded by a group of 600 men, women and children huddled under umbrellas against a seasonal highland downpour, she was tied, spread-eagled to a rough wooden frame beside a fire in a nearby metal drum, in which iron rods heated to a red glow.
Months earlier, the woman's accusors are believed to have attacked another woman with hot irons, leaving her genitals burned and fused beyond repair. 
Part of the culture: Black magic and witchcraft is widely practised (file picture) in Papua New Guinea, which brought in a Sorcery Act to protect against attacks on  accused 'witches', but few are brought to justice
Part of the culture: Black magic and witchcraft is widely practised (file picture) in Papua New Guinea, which brought in a Sorcery Act to protect against attacks on accused 'witches', but few are brought to justice
Primitive beliefs: Papua New Guinea lies just 150kms north of Australia and is in the middle of a mining boom that will bring it immense wealth, but its population of around six million live largely in remote villages where superstitions endure and witch doctors practise a form of voodoo
Primitive beliefs: Papua New Guinea lies just 150kms north of Australia and is in the middle of a mining boom that will bring it immense wealth, but its population of around six million live largely in remote villages where superstitions endure and witch doctors practise a form of voodoo
In a further case in Simbu province in 2011, a woman called Dini Korul was accused of using black magic to kill her son, Bobby, 22, who died from a stomach infection.
His friends dragged Dini, who is aged in her early 50s, to a pigsty, where she was tortured with bush knives and hot iron bars.
Afterwards, she spent more than 10 months in hospital and received no help from local authorities, her daughter paying 900 Kina (£213) for her treatment.
A year ago, Papua New Guineans woke to the headline 'Burnt Alive!' and pictures of a large crowd, including school children, watching as flames engulfed the body of a young woman.
It happened in the provincial capital of Mount Hagen, in the country's centre, considered the most dangerous city not only in Papua New Guinea, but in the whole Pacific region. 
Kepari Leniata, a 20-year-old mother of two, was accused of witchcraft after a six-year-old village boy died in a local hospital.
Relatives of the boy made Leniata confess to sorcery, after which she was dragged from her hut, stripped naked and tortured with hot iron rods.
Walne was accused of using sorcery to kill a young boy and hunted by her husband's family. Narrowly escaping public execution, she is currently in hiding
Walne was accused of using sorcery to kill a young boy and hunted by her husband's family. Narrowly escaping public execution, she is currently in hiding
Wendi from Simbu Province shows her scars. She survived brutal sorcery related violence in 2011
Wendi from Simbu Province shows her scars. She survived brutal sorcery related violence in 2011
They took her to a local rubbish dump, doused her in petrol and, with her hands and feet bound, she was thrown onto a pile of burning tyres. As Leniata screamed in agony, more petrol-soaked tyres were thrown on top of her.
Witnesses claimed the crowd blocked police officers and firefighters who tried to intervene.
Afterward, the country's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill swore to bring the killers to justice, saying 'no one commits such a despicable act in the society that all of us, including Kepari, belong to'.
O'Neill decried 'barbaric killings connected with alleged sorcery' and 'violence against women because of this belief that sorcery kills'.
'These are becoming all too common in certain parts of the country,' he said.
'It is reprehensible that women, the old and the weak in our society should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with.'
The mother and uncle of the dead boy, Janet Ware, 28, and Andrew Watea, 33, were charged with Ms Leniata's murder, but local missionaries and welfare workers say few are brought to justice and the practice of killing 'sanguma' is escalating.
Rapid development has occurred as multinational companies mine gold, copper and natural gas, promising unprecedented wealth for the nation, but which in reality brings little to an increasingly disaffected PNG youth and their villages in the rugged and remote highland terrain.
As pipelines and roads are laid, schools and the health system have been neglected, and a burgeoning cash culture has sparked rivalries and jealousies in a society which has a tradition of 'pay back'.
Gangs called 'Raskols'  have turned sadistic, with 98 per cent of women in some highland areas reporting some form of sexual abuse.
'I have been in PNG since 1969,' said a Swiss nun, Sister Gaudentia, who works in the Southern Highlands, 'we always had sanguma, but not to the extreme, not like it is now.'
A New Zealand-born missionary, who has lived in PNG for 40 years, told The Global Mail attacks had become more brutal since the early days when villagers would simply sacrifice a pig to appease bad spirits.
Burnt alive: after 20-year-old Kepari Leniata was accused of killing a neighbour's six-year-old son with sorcery, she was dragged from her hut, stripped naked, tortured with white-hot iron rods, then dragged to a local rubbish dump, doused in petrol and, with hands and feet bound, thrown on a fire of burning tyres (above). As the mother-of-two screamed in agony, more petrol-soaked tyres were thrown on top of her. Following international condemnation, the boy's mother and uncle were charged with her murder
Burnt alive: after 20-year-old Kepari Leniata was accused of killing a neighbour's six-year-old son with sorcery, she was dragged from her hut, stripped naked, tortured with white-hot iron rods, then dragged to a local rubbish dump, doused in petrol and, with hands and feet bound, thrown on a fire of burning tyres (above). As the mother-of-two screamed in agony, more petrol-soaked tyres were thrown on top of her. Following international condemnation, the boy's mother and uncle were charged with her murder
Escalating violence: Wormai village (pictured) in Simbu province, which  has seen an upsurge in attacks on women, including eight witch burnings and beatings, from which only a few survived
Escalating violence: Wormai village (pictured) in Simbu province, which has seen an upsurge in attacks on women, including eight witch burnings and beatings, from which only a few survived
Dini Korul by the grave of her son Bobby, who died from a stomach infection at the age of 22, and whose death sparked accusations she was a witch and a severe attack by fellow villagers
Dini Korul by the grave of her son Bobby, who died from a stomach infection at the age of 22, and whose death sparked accusations she was a witch and a severe attack by fellow villagers
'It used to be that they would push someone over a cliff, something like that.' he said.
'They still ended up dead, but it wasn’t the torture, like now. 
'This interrogation, this public stuff, with the kids watching, it becomes a spectacle.'
One woman from the violence-ridden Simbu Province was accused by her own sons of using sorcery to kill her husband. 
The sons burned Emate with red-hot iron bars and beat her with hatchets, hammers and knives in front of their fellow villagers.
Emate survived, but had to pay for her own hospital treatment. The PNG government has no aid programme for victims of sorcery-related violence, nor does it provide shelter for these women, who are thereafter banished from their villages and homeless.
And amid the breathtaking beauty of the highlands scenery, where every male old enough to walk carries a machete or an axe, potent superstitions endure.
Jokar 'Skull', a 28-year-old gravedigger at the Mount Hagen cemetery, is a night guard of recently dug graves against the 'sanguma'.
Young men like Skull believe witches disguise themselves and use their supernatural powers to take bodies from the ground and feast on their entrails.
Armed with machetes and homemade guns, Skull and his fellow grave guards attack any moving target after dark, including animals, believing that witches use them to get close to the graves.

Culled From: Daily Mail

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